"He's worth it in shirt sales alone" - is it a myth?

[keith's curle]

I had a quick scout around but can't find anything meaningful on this and hoped somebody might be able to help by pointing me in the direction of articles etc. Then I realised it could be worth a short thread to discuss.

Essentially the issue is do shirt sales pay, for example, a 'superstar' player's wages?
I have a united supporting b-in-law who used the phrase about Ibrahimovic (sp) but for the first time I thought about it literally and wasn't convinced. It's come up since a few times with other players and some people seem convinced.

Put simply - if a player was on say, £200k / wk and profits from each shirt with his name on are £50 then it would take 4000 shirts/wk to pay his wages, right?

Well, no. The main issue is how many of those shirts would have been sold anyway? In the case of Ibra, United would have to pick up 4000 or so new shirt sales every week for years, probably from Sweden, maybe the Balkans, and possibly a few elsewhere. Supposing a player is at a club for three years, that's 624,000 shirts sold extra to cover three years - I'm not sure how realistic that is even allowing for annual kit changes. Maybe I just can't see it from the right angle - I'm a marketing person's nightmare as I don't believe anything so find it hard to think there are enough people wasting money like that.

I realise I've simplified the scenario, is too simplistic? (I deliberately stuck to wages, not transfer fees). Am I missing some subtlety?

Also, you may want to check my maths...

 

[kaz7]

It is a myth,having a big name gets the club more exposure and brings more paying customers in and buying from the club shop and twitter numbers etc,that's how i read it anyway

 

[SWP's back]

It’s an absolute myth.

 

[Barcon]

I had a quick scout around but can't find anything meaningful on this and hoped somebody might be able to help by pointing me in the direction of articles etc. Then I realised it could be worth a short thread to discuss.

Essentially the issue is do shirt sales pay, for example, a 'superstar' player's wages?
I have a united supporting b-in-law who used the phrase about Ibrahimovic (sp) but for the first time I thought about it literally and wasn't convinced. It's come up since a few times with other players and some people seem convinced.

Put simply - if a player was on say, £200k / wk and profits from each shirt with his name on are £50 then it would take 4000 shirts/wk to pay his wages, right?

Well, no. The main issue is how many of those shirts would have been sold anyway? In the case of Ibra, United would have to pick up 4000 or so new shirt sales every week for years, probably from Sweden, maybe the Balkans, and possibly a few elsewhere. Supposing a player is at a club for three years, that's 624,000 shirts sold extra to cover three years - I'm not sure how realistic that is even allowing for annual kit changes. Maybe I just can't see it from the right angle - I'm a marketing person's nightmare as I don't believe anything so find it hard to think there are enough people wasting money like that.

I realise I've simplified the scenario, is too simplistic? (I deliberately stuck to wages, not transfer fees). Am I missing some subtlety?

Also, you may want to check my maths...

Not to mention that the kit manufacturer already payed the club. Pretty sure the club makes very little from shirt sales.
Now, if you were to be able to negotiate a new lucrative deal with a manufacturer based on you buying certain players..........

 

[ArmchairPundit]

Mate this shirt sales thing is pure SHIT that lazy pundits have jumped on board with and have repeated so often that some people actually believe it.

Here is a link to a video that explains the breakdown. Simon Jordan once explained all this on Talksport but I've lost the audio file which I saved to prove a point to Man Utd fan that was trying to tell me that Pogba shirt sales made back money they spent on his transfer fee.

 

[malg]

It is if you sign for the Rags. It is well known, and documented, that Sanchez shirt sales in Mexico are worth around £350k a week, so offsetting a lot of his wages. If you walk round Longsight all you'll see is Radhford shirts.....

 

[BlueMoonraker]

It is if you sign for the Rags. It is well known, and documented, that Sanchez shirt sales in Mexico are worth around £350k a week, so offsetting a lot of his wages. If you walk round Longsight all you'll see is Radhford shirts.....

You scamp...

 

[Parisian]

Mate this shirt sales thing is pure SHIT that lazy pundits have jumped on board with and have repeated so often that some people actually believe it.

Here is a link to a video that explains the breakdown. Simon Jordan once explained all this on Talksport but I've lost the audio file which I saved to prove a point to Man Utd fan that was trying to tell me that Pogba shirt sales made back money they spent on his transfer fee.

Yeah it is a myth.

In the case of Juventus though, it allowed them to renegociate their deal with Adidas (they doubled their offer) quickly after Cristiano Ronaldo transfer. It doesn't repay the transfer per se but it was a good investment for their brand development in the long term.

 

[roxy]

I think I saw somewhere that the manufacturer will pay a sum upfront as part of the contract which assumes a level of sales over time. Any excess over that will attract a percentage but not a huge amount. I think it’s about 10% of the retail price. The manufacturers will take most of the revenue so if a shirt sells for £60 the club will maybe get £6 but that’s only if they sell more than the contracted amount. They’d have to sell something like 15m additional shirts to recoup Pogba’s fee. I suppose it’s possible but unlikely. People would probably buy a shirt anyway but they might get one player’s name instead of another.

 

[SWP's back]

They’d have to sell something like 15m additional shirts

I may be wrong but I don’t think any football club sells more than about 3m shirts either per year.